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This is a blog dedicated to reading and writing about every story included in The World's One Hundred Best Short Stories, a 10 volume collection published by Funk & Wagnalls and edited by Grant Overton. It is an odd collection! Learn more by visiting our introductory post.

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1.4 The O. Henry Twist: Friends in San Rosario by O. Henry (1902)

There is a moment in the penultimate episode of the 2016 mini-series The People v OJ Simpson that re-framed how I understand narratives. While the whole show is about the importance of persuasive stories this episode examines what it means for a script to escape the control of the author. In “Manna from Heaven” Marcia Clark and Chris Darden discover something new in the audio tapes which feature officer Mark Fuhrman detailing, with pride, his racist practices in the LAPD. While Fuhrman’s vicious quotidian account has already made the tapes controversial, Clark and Darden listen and hear the officer misogynistically insulting Margaret York, one of the highest ranking women in the LAPD. York is also Judge Lance Ito’s wife. This bit of information, combined with a form signed by York that acknowledges that she had no prior relation to Fuhrman, threatens to ruin the case and cause a mistrial. O. Henry probably concocting another short story conceit (1909-10) After

2.7 It Might All Be Redrawn: To Love and To Honor by Octavus Roy Cohen (1925)

Things were always going to be different when they looked back. It was not always clear how but in the midst of twenty-five years, life had changed and the friendship built between George Potter but his attorney continued to grow. Though the attorney worried about George’s social life, he was excited to participate in the 25 th anniversary celebration of Mr. and Mrs. Potter. He’d been there for their wedding and he would be there for this fete. George had set everything up—the event would look exactly as the wedding had a quarter of a century ago. George was still a bit romantic and his longing for the past coincided with his eagerness for the future. That wedding is the central conceit of Octavus Roy Cohen’s 3 page story "To Love and to Honor." A clinic in the economy of storytelling, the romantic engagements of George Potter are relayed through his friend and attorney who fills in all the details we need to know, and some that we don’t (George had a "very excelle

2.8 Could It All Be So Simple?: The Mummy's Foot by Theophile Gautier (1840/1890) trans. Lafcadio Hearn

It was all a dream. Whether those words make you think of the wisdom of Biggie or the famous ending to that towering work of German Expressionism, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Robert Wiene, 1920), I've always been fond of the multiple possibilities encased the phrase. For most of my teenage years those words were my obnoxious response to friends who feared that I might spoil a movie or television show they hadn't seen: "See so then Tony Soprano walks out of the room and…" "Don't say anything I've got the episode taped!" "Oh, it's all a dream." Theophile Gautier (1811-1872) That the concluding twist of a story could be the revelation that it was only (or that it was all) a dream is, at this point, so rote and hackneyed my response was always met with a raised eyebrow and a guffaw (in the light way akin to "foh.") Played on to the point of absurdity, the twist can now seem somewhat surprising, as it does in

Overton's Overture

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